Durer - A Night in Armour 1498 - Medici postcard

Art Postcard
• Work of art title:  Albrecht Durer
• Artist (if known):  A Knight in Armour [1498 - sometimes known as Study of a Rider]
• Media or other details:  drawing?
• Publisher / Gallery:  Medici Society, London
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp & postmark details (if relevant): na
• Size: modern
• Notes & condition details: bumped corner

NOTES:

Size: 'Modern' is usually around 6in x 4in / 'Old Standard' is usually around 5 1/2in x 31/2in. Larger sizes mentioned, but if you need to know the exact size please ask.

All postcards are not totally new and are pre-owned. It's inevitable that older cards may show signs of ageing and use, particularly sent through the post. Any faults other than normal ageing are noted.

Stock No.: A218

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Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: GBP 1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): GBP 2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal or Google Checkout ONLY please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information:

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The work was created while D�rer was in the service of the Emperor Maximilian but was not a commission and does not contain an overtly political message. Instead it reaches back to a medieval sense of morality, and is replete with Gothic imagery.^[7][5] The engraving bears similarities in mood and tone to one of D�rer's other great prints Melencolia I. The knight seems resigned, and his facial features are downcast. His gloomy posture is in contrast to the sturdy look of his horse. While his armor may protect him, for now, against the surrounding demons, the skull on a stump is held front of the horse and the fall of the sand held by death in the face of the knight. According to writer Dorothy Getlein, ""there is a sense of obsolescence about the knight accompanied by Death and the Devil.""^[8]

Moritz Thausing suggested that D�rer created Knight, Death and the Devil as part of a four-work cycle, designed to illustrate the four temperaments. According to Thausing, Knight, Death and the Devil was intended to represent sanguinity, hence the ""S"" engraved in the work.^[9] It is generally believed that the portrayal is a literal, though pointed, celebration of the knight's Christian faith, and also of the ideals of Humanism. An alternative interpretation was presented in 1970 by writer Sten Karling, when he suggested that the work did not seek to glorify the knight, but instead depict a ""robber Baron"". Karling points to the lack of Christian or religious symbolism in the work and to the fox's tail wrapped on top the knight's lance � in Greek legend^[10] the fox's tail was a symbol of greed, cunning and treachery, as well as lust and whoring.^[4] Actually, knights were commonly depicted in contemporary art with a fox tail tied to the tip of their lance. Moreover the fox tail was a common form of protective amulet.

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